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Contact: [email protected] NATHAN FIELD’S THEATRE OF EXCESS: YOUTH CULTURE AND BODILY EXCESS ON THE EARLY MODERN STAGE (1600-1613) Steve Orman Canterbury Christ Church University Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 2 Contents List of Abbreviations – p3. List of Illustrations – p4. Acknowledgements – p5. Abstract – p7. Introduction – Nathan Field, Youth Culture, Bodily Excess. – p8. Chapter One - “Reward goes backwards”: Youth Culture, Sexual Violence, and the Failure of Humanism in Bussy D’Ambois. – p49. Chapter Two - “I will piss at thy shop posts, and throw / rotten eggs at thy sign”: Youth Culture and Drunken Excess in Eastward Ho. – p81. Chapter Three - “Youth is drunke with pleasure, and therefore dead to all goodnesse”: Lust and Humoral Youthful Bodies in The Faithful Shepherdess. – p114. Chapter Four - Reforming Bodily Excess: Nathan Field’s Reformation of Youth. – p144. Chapter Five – Service, Friendship and the Youthful Body in Nathan Field’s Writings. – p177. Conclusion – “Your Best Actor. Your Field”: Early Modern Youth Culture, Celebrity, and Performativity. – p215. Appendix One - Play Synopses. – p227. Appendix Two – Nathan Field’s Letter to Sutton. – p236. Appendix Three – Nathan Field’s Roles in Plays for The Children of the Chapel, The Children of the Queen’s Revels, and The Children of the Whitefriars. – p239. Appendix Four – A Numerical Record of the Usage of the Word ‘Youth’ in the Repertories of The Children of the Chapel, The Children of the Queen’s Revels, and The Children of the Whitefriars. – p243. Bibliography – p248. Total words: 99,715. 3 List of Abbreviations ODNB = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. OED = Oxford English Dictionary. REED = Records of Early English Drama. 4 List of Illustrations Figure 1: The Portrait of Nathan Field, circa 1615, from Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. Unknown Artist. p.47 Figure 2: Nathan Field’s Commendatory Verse to John Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepherdess (1610). p.48 Figure 3: T. Heywood. Philocothonista, or, the Drunkard, Opened…. London, 1635. p.113 Figure 4: Title Page to Nathan Field’s A Woman is a Weathercock (1612). p.174 Figure 5: “To Any Woman That Hath Beene No Weather-Cocke” from Field’s A Woman is a Weathercock (1612). p.175 Figure 6: “To the Reader” from Field’s A Woman is a Weathercock (1612). p.176 Figure 7: Letter from Nathan Field, Robert Daborne, and Philip Massinger to Philip Henslowe. MS I f96r. p.207 Figure 8: Letter from Nathan Field to Philip Henslowe. MS I f97r. p.209 Figure 9: Letter from Nathan Field to Philip Henslowe on behalf of Robert Daborne and himself. p.210 Figure 10: Letter from Nathan Field to Sutton the Preacher (1616). p.211-214 Figure 11: Title Page from Robert Tailor’s The Hogg Hath Lost His Pearl (1614). p.222 Figure 12: Title Page from Wentworth Smith’s The Hector of Germany (1615). p.223 Figure 13: Nathan Field’s Commendatory Verse to Ben Jonson’s Catiline (1611). p.224 Figure 14: From Henry Parrot’s Laquei Ridiculosi: or Springes for Woodcocks (1613). p.225 Figure 15: The Quarto of Chapman’s Bussy D’Ambois (1641). p.226 5 Acknowledgements It is somewhat poignant, considering the subject matter of my research, that a large chunk of my own youth has been spent in the completion of this thesis. Thankfully, in doing so, I have avoided many of the transgressions that befell many young men in the early modern period, and my own bodily excesses have been constrained to an absolute minimum. It is fitting, however, when mentioning the word excess, that I am grateful to recall here the excessive kindness and support of an excessive number of people. Words cannot adequately describe the unfailing support and guidance given to me by my supervisor, Dr Claire Bartram. I am so grateful for her time, effort and energy during my years spent at Canterbury Christ Church University; how I didn’t drive her crazy during the composition of the thesis, I don’t know. Every member of staff from the Department of English has played an important part in my academic development and I am indebted to all the members of my panel for their professionalism and encouragement, particularly Professor Jackie Eales, Professor Adrienne Gavin, Dr Carolyn Oulton, and Dr Astrid Stilma, who was such a fantastic support when I began teaching undergraduate students. I am also proud to record the support of Dr Peter Merchant, and his kindness in assisting him as a research assistant, as well as Dr Andrew Palmer and Dr Stefania Ciocia for allocating me modules to teach on the English Programme. I am thankful to the Graduate School and Canterbury Christ Church University for financial support in the form of a two-year scholarship during the composition of this thesis. Outside of CCCU, I must express thanks to the following people for reading draft chapters, assisting me with research queries, listening to aspects of my research or asking me questions at conferences: Dr Edel Lamb kindly shared with me her unpublished essay on “Youth Culture” and offered numerous useful tips along the way; Dr Liz Oakley-Brown was, and still is, inspirational in fostering my love of the early modern period; Dr Martin Wiggins deserves extra special thanks for his enthusiasm, expertise, and willingness to perform the part of a sea-captain at a staged-reading of The Honest Man’s Fortune at CCCU; Professor Hans Gerritsen was incredibly kind in presenting me with his edition of The Honest Man’s Fortune; Dr Sara Wolfson and Dr Andrew Humphries both listened with patience to my ramblings about the PhD process and academic life in general; Dr Ellie Rycroft kindly, and swiftly, assisted me with a research query. I also wish to thank everybody who supported the staged-reading at CCCU of Field and Fletcher’s play in 2010 – Dr Andy Kesson; Dr Peter Kirwan; Jackie Watson; Nicola Boyle; Dr Alex Samson; K. Costigan; and Brian MacMahon. I am also thankful to Professor Gordon McMullan, who introduced me to Nathan Field. The staff at Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich Archives, and the National Archives, were swift in answering my research queries and I am grateful for their assistance. 6 I’ve been blessed to be acquainted with such a fantastic set of early career academics and friends who have reminded, and I dare say encouraged me, to engage in a performance of twenty- first century youth culture (usually by buying me cider). All listened to, read, and commented on various portions of the thesis as well as conversations about the pleasures and perils of the PhD process: Dr Dan Cadman, Anita Butler, Cathleen McKague, Steph Appleton, José Alberto Pèrez Díez, Dr Ula Kizelbach, Yuto Koizumi, Emma Whipday, Dr Shaun Sturips, Dr Derek Dunne, Dr Kate Woods, and Nicola Boyle. Finally, how can I end without mentioning the debts (both financial and personal) that I owe to my family and Maria, who have made all of this possible? Abstract 7 This dissertation argues for the reappraisal of Jacobean boy actors by acknowledging their status as youths. Focussing on the repertory of The Children of the Queen’s Revels and using the acting and playwriting career of Nathan Field as an extensive case-study, it argues, via an investigation into cultural and theatrical bodily excess, that the theatre was a profoundly significant space in which youth culture was shaped and problematised. In defining youth culture as a space for the assertion of an identity that is inherently performative, the theatre stages young men’s social lives to reflect the performativity of masculinity in early modern culture. Chapters One to Three focus on the body of Nathan Field by investigating the roles that he performed in the theatre to claim that the staging of bodily excess amounted to an effort to inculcate correct paths of masculinity. Chapters Four and Five offer detailed analysis of the plays written by Nathan Field, finding that Field was keen to champion positive aspects of youth culture and identity by reforming bodily excess on stage. Chapter One asserts that George Chapman’s Bussy D’Ambois (1603) identifies the protagonist’s excessive violence as a failure to adhere to humanist teachings; a sign that youth culture is dependent upon the lessons learnt in school, whereas Chapter Two finds that Eastward Ho (1605) condemns the monstrous youthful drunken body before encouraging the audience to value apprenticeship as a positive site of youth identity. Chapter Three argues that John Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess (1607) reveals a range of polluted young bodies to demonstrate the importance of moderating the humoral fluctuations of youth before Chapter Four finds Field to be a conservative dramatist who ridicules excess with explicit didactic intentions in his Woman is a Weathercock (1610) and Amends for Ladies (1611).